New rules tighten reins on lobbyists

Disclosure required for all who are paid

SAN DIEGO – People who are paid to influence the decisions of top-ranking city officials in San Diego will enter the new year with tougher disclosure rules about whom they are talking to and why.

Agreeing with the city's Ethics Commission that the former set of rules for lobbyists was riddled with loopholes, the City Council tightened the lobbying ordinance in a 7-0 vote in July. The new rules take effect tomorrow.

A central change involves who should register as a lobbyist with the City Clerk's Office. The registration threshold used to be anyone who is paid $2,730 per quarter to lobby city officials, but the triggering amount has been lowered to $1 to get a fuller picture of who is wooing the city's decision makers.

San Diego's lobbying rules were enacted in 1973 and revised in 1998. Stacey Fulhorst, executive director of the Ethics Commission, said the latest overhaul was overdue.

The urgency for greater disclosure followed the scandal involving a Las Vegas strip club owner, his lobbyist and three San Diego city councilmen, as well as the disgraceful fall of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who received bribes from defense contractors.

“It just wasn't working,” Fulhorst said of the city's old lobbying law. “Now if you're paid to contact city officials, you need to register and disclose it immediately.”

There are other changes affecting businesses and large organizations with in-house lobbyists, such as Qualcomm and the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. They must register if their employees have 10 or more contacts over 60 days with top city officials.

Lobbyists also must report which council member they have contacted and what they are asking the elected official to do.

They must disclose contacts with city employees who are assistant deputy directors and above and name them.

Under the old laws, lobbyists had to disclose only the decisions they were working to influence and not the outcome sought. They also did not have to reveal who was contacted.

The rules will not affect residents who are trying to process a building plan with a city engineer or conduct other routine business.

“If you're just trying to move through the city bureaucracy and you're not accessing a higher-level manager, the lobbying laws will not affect you or require you to register,” Fulhorst said.

Mitch Berner, who has been a registered lobbyist for eight years, testified before the Ethics Commission in favor of the $1 threshold for requiring registration as a lobbyist.

“I wanted to make it simpler, more stringent and easier to follow and understand,” Berner said. “If it's $1, nobody has an excuse not to comply.”

What he considered unfair was the requirement that lobbyists disclose if they've hosted fundraisers and made campaign donations while nonlobbyists are not required to do so.

He cited the example of a developer who holds a fundraiser and hits up his subcontractors, architects and others to give money to a candidate.

“They're putting that unique burden on us,” said Berner, who hopes the commission will consider the change when updating the city's campaign-disclosure ordinance.

Other lobbyists and their representatives criticized the changes when they were proposed, saying lobbyists were being unfairly singled out for heightened scrutiny. Why, they asked, are volunteer groups, including neighborhood associations, not put to the same disclosure rules when they exert influence at City Hall?

Critics said the different requirements for lobbyists and volunteer groups raise questions about free-speech infringement.

The Ethics Commission decided against asking the council to force unpaid volunteers to register as lobbyists because it might discourage citizens from contacting their elected representatives.

City officials will also have new restrictions on receiving gifts. Lobbying firms or companies now can give $10 in gifts to a city official in a calendar month.

The disclosure rules fall short of those of the state Coastal Commission, whose members announce whom they were lobbied by before voting on issues. Fulhorst said a similar disclosure would be unwieldy for the City Council, which votes on far more items than the coastal panel at its meetings.

She said, however, that the commission has requested an opinion from the City Attorney's Office to see if some other form of disclosure is possible, such as posting contacts on issues before the council on the city's Web site.

“The No. 1 goal – and what the commission is hoping will be accomplished by the new laws – is that the public will have relevant information about the people who are paid to influence decisions at City Hall,” Fulhorst said.